The Mother Load

Sophie stared at the photo she posted to Instagram. She kept reading the comments over and over and over. Her friends and family loved the photo, but, somehow it made Sophie completely regret ever posting it. Some comments were nice like…

“That looks good on you”

“Cool vintage dress!”

However, it was her sister Mia’s comment that really struck her.

“Wow, you look exactly like mom.”

Sophie heard this her entire life. As a child she felt complimented; as a teenager she felt annoyed; as an adult it was just so repetitive she usually just sarcastically nodded. It was the last 3 years that felt particularly awkward because Sophie’s mother had passed away. When people said how much she looked like her mother, she felt awkward and guilty for reminding them that she was dead.

Today was Sophie’s day off and she liked to wear outfits she felt good in and go for walks around town. Today she put on a white, crocheted midi dress. It used to belong to her mother; when Sophie was a child, she would stare at her mother and wish she could wear something that beautiful.

She remembered when her father gave her the dress. She felt so guilty taking it. Of course she wanted it, but, what if Mia wanted it? What if her mother wanted to be buried in it and never got a chance to express it? She felt like she was benefiting from her mother’s death by inheriting her beautiful things. So she hardly ever wore them.

Today she worked up the courage to wear it, and she wanted to do it fearlessly, and all it took was one comment from her sister to induce fear. It was typed out for the whole internet; her friends and coworkers could see it. When she goes to work tomorrow, were they going to say something? Ask about her mom? Sophie really didn’t want to explain to people at work that she wore her dead mother’s clothes and then flaunted them on the internet. In fact, she really didn’t want to talk about her mother at all.

Sophie put her phone down; she was determined to carry on with her day. It was her day off and she had every intention of spending it looking awesome and feeling good. She put on her favorite music, poured herself a glass of red wine, grabbed a book of poetry and sat down on her couch. Sophie didn’t really understand poetry, so lately she had been reading it. It was learning little things that made Sophie happy.

A familiar song came on and Sophie flashed back to a time when she was 10 years old.

It was a Saturday, which meant her mother was deep cleaning the house with the radio on. Furniture was being pulled away from walls and the smell of Pledge was heavy in the air. It was a warm day, so Sophie and her sister Mia decided to play outside and stay out of the way. They would play with their jump ropes and ride their bikes up and down the driveway After a few hours they were getting hungry and decided to head inside. As they opened the door they felt an eerie silence. The radio was turned off and they saw their mother sitting at the dining room table. She was looking out the window and acted as though she didn’t hear them come in. “hey mom” Mia said timidly.

Their mother turned towards them and looked at Sophie sternly and held up her diary. She pulled out the chair next to hers. Mia stood there like a statue, not knowing what to do.

“I wanna talk to you.” She pointed at Sophie.

Sophie’s gut started to turn and she could feel her throat closing. She sat down and stared at the table, not really knowing what was going to happen. Her mother opened the diary and started reading aloud.

“I hate when mom makes me wear those stupid overalls. She always makes me wear dumb clothes that kids make fun of. It is like mom doesn’t want me to wear nice stuff. Mom is so mean.”

Her mother flipped to another page.

“Mom yelled at me for my shoes being covered in mud, she can go to hell.”

Sophie was still on the couch holding her book; her mind was wandering off into the past. That wasn’t the only time her mom went through her things. Sophie came home from school and before she could get her shoes off; her mother bombarded her, “Who’s Nick?”

Someone she only mentioned in her journal. She stopped keeping a journal after that. Privacy and boundaries were almost non-existent in the house. The interior doors didn’t have locks; not even the bathrooms. It was a regular occurrence for her mother to walk into the bathroom without knocking. Sophie would scream and be mortified, and Sophie’s mother would just say, “oh, don’t be so dramatic, it’s just me. I have the same parts as you do.”

Sophie’s memories spiraled further. Every Christmas holiday, her mother would try to make everything perfect, and something as small as missing Sophie and Mia opening their stockings was cause for her to shut herself in the bedroom. The situation became about how no one cared about her. Later, Sophie and Mia were scolded by their father about how they needed to respect their mother more.

Things began to occur to Sophie. These weren’t just memories; these were significant moments in her life with her mother. Sophie thought about how her mother volunteered for almost every school trip. If Sophie was on the phone, her mother would turn the TV down and pace around pretending she wasn’t listening. She almost never saw her friends outside of school. It was always awkward to have people over because her mother would try to join in. Sophie often turned down invitations to visit friends because it usually ended in a fight. Sophie remembered the line her mother used.

“I don’t have time to drive you every where all the time. Maybe I have things to do, maybe I want to see my friends.”

Sophie closed the book of poetry and sat up as if she was awakening from a nightmare. She had been living with a controlling parent and nobody knew. Hell, she barely knew. Sophie thought back to all these moments when her mother would question her decisions. Tell her things like, “You wouldn’t like that.” To even the smallest things, like an ice cream flavor or a ride at the fair. Then something else occurred to Sophie. Her closet was full of outfits that her mother wanted her to wear. To appease her mother, she kept them and reluctantly wore them and even went as far as to tell relatives how they had the same taste. Sophie marched to her bedroom and flung her closet doors open.

“Good Lord.”She said. Her closet was jam-packed. Her mother insisted that she keep everything because you never knew what you were going to need. She was obsessed with clothes and shoes. Her mother loved going on shopping sprees. After her passing, her father found out she had over $25,000 in credit card debt. Sophie noticed how many items either once belonged to her mother or her mother bought for her. She reached for a pink knitted sweater. She never wore pink, and yet, her mother would buy her pink shirts. She could hear her mother saying, “you need more color in your wardrobe.” She tossed the sweater on her bed. What other pointless crap was in there? Most of it she had only worn once. Sophie’s mother always bought her a new dress for a wedding; she saw her prom dress and, sun dress, after sun dress, after sun dress. She gathered the group of dresses together in her arms, and all at once threw them on the bed to join the pink sweater. She grabbed a stack of pants and sorted through them. One by one she threw them into the pile on her bed.

A pair of blue cords from 8 Christmas’s ago. 3 pairs of khakis and pair of boot-cut jeans that never felt comfortable.

Hardly any of this was her style. Not that she knew what her style was, but, it wasn’t this. Sophie had trouble with certain items. She felt guilty when there was a nice memory attached to a shirt her mother had gifted her. Or, was it a nice memory? Her mother’s love felt conditional. So many years were spent thinking about how to not make her mother angry. When she made the slightest mistake, it would be used against her when she asked for something. She decided to stop thinking so much and just go with her gut. She tore through her closet. More things piled on the bed; pastel T-shirts, black dress pants, frilly pajamas, endless blouses, a box of scarves. Sophie remembered coming home for Easter Holidays, and she cut her hair. Her mother bought her scarves as a “gift.” She showed Sophie how to tie them around her head to look more feminine. Then she saw all the clothes that had once belonged to her mother. She didn’t want to be reminded of the heinous bitch anymore. She caught herself in her bedroom mirror and saw herself in her mother’s dress. She took the dress off and threw it on top of the pile. There wasn’t much left in her closet. She tried to find something that felt like “her.” It was becoming overwhelming, so Sophie just put on jeans and a tattered band t-shirt.

In 2 hours Sophie had gone through her entire closet. Then went through the clothes she had thrown on her bed; double-checking that she was alright with her decision. She walked to the kitchen and poured herself another glass of wine and leaned up against the kitchen counter. She took a sip.

“I’m not happy…” She whispered to herself. Sophie became extremely aware of the fact that the last 3 years had been leading up to this moment. No, not the last 3 years, her whole life. Sure, in the last 3 years were sad. Her entire life was controlled by her mother. Even when Sophie was in college, she had to call home every Sunday at 6pm. How could she be so blind? It was so obvious her mother had issues, so why hadn’t anyone else noticed? Why didn’t her father try to stop her mother from being so screwed up towards their kids? Sophie shook her head; of course he wouldn’t do anything. He also paid dearly for “poking the bear.” Nobody outside the house would have noticed because Sophie’s mother was so good at keeping up appearances. People would make the effort to approach Sophie and tell her how lucky she was to have such a good mom.

Sophie finished her glass of wine, and aggressively grabbed garbage bags from under the sink and stomped to her bedroom. She bagged up the mountain of clothes that she had tossed onto the bed. She would grab a fistful and shove it into the bag. She was angrily muttering under her breath, “I hate you.” “Get out of my head.” She was working up a sweat, but, she let her anger fuel her. She wasn’t going to stop until the task was done. Every bag she filled, she dragged it to the front door. She counted 8 garbage bags of clothes. Clothes that held so much weight. Literal and metaphorical. These clothes represented a part of Sophie that she wanted to leave behind.

Sophie called her friend Anna and asked if she would be willing to help transport the 8 bags of clothes to the donation bin down the street. Anna agreed with no hesitation. In fact, she thought it was hilarious.

“8 bags?! Do you even have any clothes left?”

Anna found a place to park on the street and came up to Sophie’s apartment. She was shocked when she saw that the bags were in front of the door.

“Holy crap!” Anna shrieked.

“Holy pile of crap, Anna. Just grab and bag and go.” Sophie squeezed past the bags, and when she reached the other side, she did not waste anytime. Sophie grabbed one and started down the two flights of stairs to Anna’s car. Anna grabbed one and followed. The next trip up, Sophie took one in her hand and kicked a second one down the stairs and all the way to Anna’s car. Sophie felt a satisfaction doing this. Anna didn’t have the heart to kick any bags down the stairs.

They managed to fit everything in Anna’s car. She couldn’t see out her back window, but, she figured it was only a 6 minute drive to the donation bin. Anna noticed how unusually quiet Sophie was being. When they got inside the car, Anna looked over at Sophie. “Are you OK?”

“I don’t know, I think so. Why?”

“I think that answers most of my question. You’re freaking me out a little. You haven’t said much, you went from wearing a pretty white dress to an old shirt with a hole in the armpit and at one point I thought you were going to curb stomp a bag of clothes.”

“Sorry, please don’t think I’m not appreciative of your help. I am. I have so much on my mind, I don’t even know where or how to start. Right now I’m dying to get to that bin. If you like you can hang out at my place. I’d be all too happy to order in some sushi as a thank you and we can break into that second bottle of wine.”

Anna gave out a laugh. “You’re drunk too?! By the way, you’re way of saying thank you is better than the last 3 dates I had. You’re either truly amazing or my life is very sad.”

Sophie giggled, “Can’t it be both?” They both started laughing and broke some tension. Anna, started her car and stuck her head out the window to make doubly sure there weren’t any cars coming.

The donation bin was in a little parking lot just outside of an independent grocery store. Anna parked as close as she could, but they would still have to walk a few feet. Anna and Sophie each grabbed a bag and awkwardly hobbled over to the bin. Together they lifted and shoved the first bag in and heard a THUD and a slight echo.

“Hey, it’s empty!” Anna shouted. Sophie felt relieved, she had so many bags and was worried they might not all fit. If that was the case, she was going to throw them out of Anna’s car and make a quick getaway. The two friends continued to grab a bag each and once again hobbled over to the bin and together lifted and shoved. To Sophie, every THUD sound made her feel lighter and more accomplished. This small act felt so great. Her shoulders became less tense; her jaw was more relaxed.

The last bag went in and instead of a THUD she could hear it landing on the other seven, but, she still heard the weight of it. It was still just as satisfying.

Anna and Sophie got back into the car and Anna looked over at her friend and smiled. “I don’t know what this was about, but it was obviously more than donating some clothes.”

“Yes. Again, I really appreciate your last minute help. I didn’t set out to do this today or… At all really. It just happened.”

Anna didn’t know what to say, so she made a joke. “So, what now? Go back your place and cut all your hair off, dye it bright pink?”

Sophie smiled, “No, with my mom being dead doing things for shock value has lost it’s appeal.”

Sophie and Anna always appreciated each other’s sense of humor. Sophie took a breath and turned to her seat to face Anna. “My mom wasn’t the worst mom but, she wasn’t all that great either.” Anna turned more in her seat to face Sophie.

“What do you mean?”

Sophie continued, “My mom was very controlling and overbearing and she had to die for me to even notice. I mean, I noticed I just didn’t realize how bad it was. My normal state of being was to constantly appease her because she was a ticking time bomb. The smallest thing would set her off even if nothing was happening; she could always find chaos in the calm. Once she tore apart my room because she thought I was smoking; I came home after school to find my stuff everywhere. I couldn’t shave my legs or pluck my eyebrows until I was 16. And my mom picked out my clothes and told me what to wear all the time, even after I moved out. She was always up my ass, I mean, her name is still on my fucking bank statements and she’s not even alive.”

Sophie, started sobbing and Anna put her hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t have her to tell me what to do anymore and I’ve never felt so lost and relieved at the same time.”

Anna hugged Sophie and hugged her hard. She didn’t know that about Sophie. Anna reached over and grabbed Sophie’s seat belt and buckled it for her.

“Ok,” Anna said, “We’re going to buy another bottle of wine, we’re going to order in sushi and you’re calling in sick tomorrow because I think we’re both going to be very, very hungover tomorrow.”

Sophie wiped her tears and was now laughing and crying at the same time. She felt horrible for exploding in front of her friend like that. Anna didn’t judge her, not for one second.